


Ships In The Night

by cardinalstar



Series: The Strongest Ties [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Gen, Iris West and the Invisible Houseguest, POV Barry Allen, POV Iris West, Reporter Iris West, Soulbonds, Telepathic Dragons, Telepathy, season one AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-15 23:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11816367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardinalstar/pseuds/cardinalstar
Summary: It's been two weeks since the STAR Labs particle accelerator exploded, and between her job and worrying about her best friend, Iris hasn't had much time to rest.  When an invisible visitor shows up at the West house, Iris wonders at first if she's having a nervous breakdown - but the truth turns out to be far stranger.Getting struck by lightning, waking up from a coma, and dealing with the nosy patient in the room next door was not how Barry had been planning on spending his weekend.  Fortunately, it turns out that his accident has some benefits of the red and scaly variety.





	Ships In The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Good evening! I've been having some trouble with inspiration for my long WIP, and was wondering which project to work on in its place when I received a kind comment on the previous installment in this series. I decided to dust this AU off, and I'm glad I did! This was a fun and refreshing break; I'll be writing the second part of this, which will be from Barry's POV, this week and will hopefully have it ready to post by the end of the weekend.
> 
> Quick note that this fic is part of a series and it won't make much sense without reading the previous entry in the series, "Wounding Eternity." It's a short oneshot though, so it won't take up too much of your time!

If Barry had been awake, Iris might have felt differently about life in Central City after the particle accelerator explosion.  There was an undercurrent of continual tension in the air, as if the city was holding its breath.  Work had never been busier; her bosses at CCPN were pushing the news coverage hard, bringing in eyewitness accounts and testimonials from all over the city.  

If Barry had been awake, Iris would have been enjoying the fact that her press credentials allowed her access to privileged information, making her one of the most well-informed people in the city despite her complete lack of seniority.  She would have been busting her ass to cover more stories, work longer hours, do anything she could to advance herself at CCPN in a time when all hands on deck were needed.  

If Barry had been awake, Iris would have been excited to be on the front lines of her first big story.  She would have been sharing her work with him, asking him for advice on the relevant pieces of science that would enhance her journalism and make her pieces more informative for her audience.  She would have lamented with him, even if she didn’t love the science behind the accelerator the way he did, that a significant milestone in human discovery and exploration had crashed and burned.  

But Barry wasn’t awake.  Barry was in a coma at Central City General Hospital and had been for the past two weeks, and Iris hadn’t even begun to process her feelings yet because she’d been working round the clock, hurling herself headfirst into something that could make a difference for the city, because there was nothing she could do to help her best friend.  

When she realized she had been rereading the same paragraph of interview responses for about five minutes, Iris sighed and decided it was time to call it a night.  She waved at Mason Bridge on her way out the door, and the Pulitzer-winning journalist gave her a nod and a tiny smile in return.  For a second, Iris felt a tiny surge of elation that one of her favorite journalists was beginning to recognize who she was - but then, as usual, she slid back down into her previous morose slump.  She made a mental note to write down that Bridge had smiled at her, once she drove home from work.  Even if she couldn’t shake her lingering depression, taking a few extra minutes to focus on the positive things in each day was helping her get through it.  

Besides, she reflected as she unlocked the front door of the house and stepped inside, she and her dad both had the day off tomorrow.  There would be plenty of time for her to sit with Barry.  

There was clearly no one home; the lights in the kitchen were off, and there was no babble of television coming from the living room.  Iris checked her phone and saw that she’d had a text from her dad while she was on the way home -  _ Work running late, will be home for dinner.  I will clean the kitchen after.  Love you. _

They’d been doing that more often, telling each other that they loved one another.  Sometimes it took a loss to shake up your perspective on the world.  Even though her dad was a cop, Iris rarely thought about the possibility that he might not make it home at the end of the day.  She trusted in him to do everything in his power to make it back to her and Barry, and did her best to avoid worrying about things that were beyond her control.

In the meantime, she could start the spaghetti.  It would take probably twenty minutes for the water to boil, then ten for the pasta to cook - if she got started now, it would be done by six, when they usually ate.  

She was putting the pot of water on the stove when she heard a bumping sound coming from the living room.  “Hello?” she said cautiously.  Aside from some other shuffling sounds, there was no reply.  

Another small detail - Iris had become convinced that her house was haunted.  

She wasn’t sure when she had first started to notice that something was off.  The first few days after the accelerator explosion had been a fugue of exhaustion and bedside vigils, so if she’d failed to realize that things around the West residence were beginning to go bump in the night, it would hardly be shocking.  But lately she’d begun to feel like she wasn’t really alone in the house, like there was some sort of…  _ presence  _ nearby, shadowing her, not menacing but still present all the same.  

At first she’d wondered if it could have been a dragon, waiting for the right moment to introduce itself to her and ask for a contract.  She was twenty-five, a little on the old side, but it could still happen.  But it wasn’t their way to lurk out of sight for days; they would usually approach fairly quickly, so that if their offer was refused they could move on to look for another host.  

Just when Iris was about to settle down and continue working on dinner, she heard it again - a small shuffling sound, this time accompanied by a tiny whimper, like an animal in pain.  

Iris grabbed a knife from the block and cautiously edged into the den.  Her eyes came to rest on a throw blanket that had shifted from its original spot.  It had been laying on the back of the sofa, but it was now draped in a pile on the floor - a pile, she realized with a surge of unease, that was moving slightly, as if it was breathing.  “I can see you,” Iris said, gripping the hilt of the knife more tightly and forcing her voice to stay level.  “Come out of there.” 

The blanketed mass shifted, wriggling around and turning until Iris could see the outline of a long neck.  Other than that, there was nothing under the blanket at all, except for a pair of wide yellow eyes.  

“Oh my god,” Iris gasped.  

The thing, whatever it was, blinked slowly at her, then made the same plaintive noise she had heard from the kitchen.  Slowly, very slowly, it stretched out further and began to shuffle out of the corner; Iris took one hand off the knife and began reaching for her cell phone to call for help, but the visitor made no attempts to approach her.  Instead it began shuffling towards the coffee table, making tiny sniffling noises.  

“Do you want something?” said Iris, perplexed and wondering why she didn’t feel more alarmed by the semi-solid apparition that had decided to make camp in her living room.  “Why are you here?”  

The thing’s blanket-covered nose bumped against a pine-scented holiday candle, shoving it across the surface of the table towards her.  “You… want a candle,” said Iris.  And then she remembered Barry, sitting in the living room, feeding his dragon on fire and time, and even though it was nuts  _ and impossible,  _ she whispered, “Telastra?”  

The visitor let out a  _ cree  _ and shoved the candle closer, and Iris went to the kitchen to exchange her knife for a lighter.  

* * *

Even though she had no idea how Telastra was here, much less visible and tangible in some way, Iris became even more convinced it was her when the lit candle started disappearing into nothingness before her eyes, its lifespan eaten away the same way she remembered from when she and Barry were kids.  Even more incredible, as she ate, Telastra began coming into sharper focus.  Iris could definitely make out the shapes of solid limbs and the contours of the dragon’s neck more clearly than she’d been able to before.  “Do you need more?” she asked once the candle had died - it only took her ten minutes to eat the whole thing.  The blanket nodded.  “I’ll be right back,” Iris said, and went up to her room.  

She returned with two more candles, a stack of paper, and some markers.  “I have a few questions for you,” said Iris, writing giant letters on each piece of paper while the dragon ate.  “The first few are yes and no, so you can just nod or shake your head.  Are you ready?”  

The dragon nodded yes.  

Iris took a deep breath.  This was really happening.  She was really interviewing a dragon.  “Alright.  Can you tell me what happened to you?”   

Telastra shook her head with a sad crooning noise.  

“Okay,” said Iris, swallowing.  It had been a long shot, but it was worth a try.  “Can you speak?” Telastra nodded, then shook her head; Iris wasn’t sure how to interpret that, so she forged on ahead.  “Okay then.  If I give you some letters to point to, will you be able to spell things for me?”

More nods.  Telastra’s head emerged slightly from her blanket and she nosed toward the papers in Iris’ hands.  Fighting to keep her hands from trembling, Iris quickly laid the letters out in a grid, placed in alphabetical order so that Telastra could find them faster.  

Telastra extended one semi-transparent foreleg and tapped a claw against the letter B.  Iris watched in fascination as the dragon moved to the A, then down to the R, which she rapped twice before stretching out her foot toward the letters that were further away from her.  She let out a huff of frustration and wiggled closer, scrunching up more papers beneath her as she moved.  

Iris shook herself as she realized that she’d been staring at Telastra, too busy watching the spectacle of a dragon interacting with physical objects that she’d forgotten her primary purpose was to be conducting an  _ interview.   _ “Barry,” she said, and Telastra froze.  “Are you spelling Barry?”  

Telastra nodded rapidly, then slapped her foot down on the letter W before shifting it to the H, then A, then T.  

“There was an accident,” Iris said, aware that she was interrupting but relatively sure that Telastra cared more about answers than about politeness.  “The night that the particle accelerator exploded, you and Barry were struck by lightning.  He’s in a coma.”  

Telastra’s semi-transparent claws tightened and punched four holes in the paper.  

“It’s okay!” Iris said, hastily trying to reassure the dragon.  “It was touch-and-go for a while, but his condition is stable.  I was going to go visit him at the hospital later tonight.”  

Telastra heaved herself to her feet, dislodging the blanket and scattering the sheets of paper across the floor.  Her yellow eyes bored into Iris’.  “Go,” she croaked, a hoarse squawk that was only just intelligible as a spoken word.  

Iris’ eyes widened as she realized what Telastra had been trying to convey when she’d said that she could and couldn’t speak.  Most dragons weren’t all that great with human words; they tended to communicate in images and symbols, and human speech was like an alien language to them.  Barry and Telastra had been together for so long that her English was apparently quite good, but there was a big difference between speaking words into her partner’s mind and verbalizing them out loud.  “Do you want to go see him?” she said, trying to keep her face from betraying her surprise.  

Telastra nodded vigorously.   _ “Yes.”   _

There was nothing for it, Iris decided as she grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and picked up her purse.  When your best friend’s dragon showed up at your house and demanded to be taken to the hospital, getting them there as fast as possible just seemed like the thing to do.  

_ Dinner will be late,  _ she texted her dad one-handed as she held the door open for Telastra, then fumbled with her keys.   _ Going to the hospital.   _

_ Why?  _ came the reply almost immediately.   _ Is Barry okay? _

_ He’s fine,  _ Iris texted.   _ But Telastra showed up at our house.   _

She waited for her dad to ask how that was possible, or demand an explanation.  But after a minute’s pause, all he said was  _ I’m on my way. _

* * *

It took some maneuvering to get Telastra into Iris’ small Volvo station wagon, but they made it work.  Once Iris folded down the backseat, Telastra was able to cram herself into the trunk with minimal shoving.  

“It’s only for a short drive,” Iris said apologetically to the dragon, turning her head so that Telastra’s semi-transparent snout was visible out of the corner of her eye.  “We were able to get him into Central City General - they take his insurance there, so he won’t be bankrupt when he wakes up.”  Belatedly, Iris realized that she was babbling, but Telastra didn’t seem to care.  “Do you think he’ll wake up?” she said helplessly.  “When we get there?”  

“Yes?” Telastra said, her voice lifting on the end of the word and turning it into a sibilant hiss.  To Iris’ ears the dragon sounded uncertain, but that could just be a matter of her projecting, or misinterpreting Telastra’s inflection.  

Iris bit her lip.  She wished there was a better way for her to communicate with Telastra.  One-word answers could only get them so far, and Telastra was lively and intelligent enough that she probably found the situation frustrating.  “Do you want me to keep talking?” she asked.  “I could also turn on the radio.”  

Telastra stretched her nose toward the radio, and Iris’ lips twitched as she reached for the dial.  

The station she’d been listening to on her drive home was a variety station she was fond of; it played a mix of popular current music and older songs from the previous few decades.  Right now, it was playing vintage Lady Gaga.  Iris made a face and moved to change the channel, but Telastra shoved her head in the way.  “No.”  

Iris stopped, her eyebrows rising.  “You want to listen to ‘Poker Face?’”

Telastra nodded.  “Barry likes,” she croaked, sounding pleased.  

It was one of the weirdest car rides Iris had ever been on.  She drove and switched between radio stations whenever the commercials came on, and her semi-transparent passenger made little noises of approval whenever she heard a song she liked.  Sometimes Telastra crooned along to the music, and although she never used any words, Iris found that the noise was actually fairly easy on the ears.  

When they reached the hospital parking lot, Iris realized that they had another problem.  “Um.  Telastra,” she said, thinking of the commotion that a solid, half-invisible being would set off in a hospital ward.  “I don’t suppose there’s any way for you to fold yourself up small until we get to where Barry’s staying?”  

The dragon shook her head.  “Can’t,” she sighed.  “Not-”  She broke off, making a frustrated noise that reminded Iris of the sound Barry’s recently-deceased Honda Civic had made when it was struggling to shift between gears.  “Need Barry,” she finished with a huff. 

“Okay,” Iris said.  Tentatively, giving the dragon plenty of time to move away if she wanted to avoid the contact, she laid a hand on Telastra’s nose.  Her skin felt smooth and hard to the touch, but not scaly the way a snake’s would have, and it seemed to buzz faintly with energy.  The dragon’s yellow gaze went cross-eyed as she tried to focus on Iris’ hand, and Iris bit her lip to hold back a giggle.  It didn’t help that the buzzing sensation was beginning to make her fingers tickle.  She removed her hand from Telastra before continuing.  “Can you turn invisible, then?  The way you were when I found you?”  

Telastra tilted her head, seeming to concentrate, before gradually melting from sight until only her yellow eyes remained.  Her stare regarded Iris for a second, then the eyes winked out from existence as well.  

Iris shivered; she hadn’t realized how disconcerting it would be, having a creature as large as a grown man vanish into thin air right before her eyes.  “You’re still there, right?” she called, feeling foolish.  

“Yes,” Telastra said in reply.  It might have been Iris’ imagination, but the dragon didn’t sound as hoarse as she had when she’d first started speaking.  And her pronunciation was definitely getting better.  Maybe she just needed practice.

“Alright,” said Iris, climbing out of her seat and opening the trunk for Telastra to crawl out.  “Let’s do this thing.”  

The ICU at Central City General was on the first floor and easily accessible from the parking deck that Iris had chosen, which was a good thing considering that Iris had a large invisible animal trailing behind her.  Fortunately, Telastra seemed to be doing an okay job of keeping her feet and tail to herself, and there weren’t a ton of people wandering around the ICU at this time of the evening.  There were a few close shaves, but for the most part they made it to Barry’s room without incident.  

Stepping into Barry’s room at the ICU always made Iris’ stomach drop for the first few seconds.  There was something about seeing her vibrant, energetic best friend laying in a hospital bed, covered in tubes and wires, that always made her feel like the ground had been jerked out from under her.  She kept thinking she’d get used to it, but somehow it never got any easier.  

Telastra made a high-pitched noise of distress and pushed past Iris, jostling her as she rushed to Barry’s bedside.  Iris saw the thin hospital sheet move, seemingly of its own accord, as Telastra peeled it away to expose Barry’s left shoulder.  

When Telastra’s head came into contact with Barry’s skin, everything seemed to stop.  

Then, in the blink of an eye, Telastra was no longer invisible - she wasn’t even a faint, semi-invisible presence at Barry’s bedside.  She was solid and undeniably real, bigger than a Great Dane, smelling faintly of ozone and gleaming all over with polished dark-red scales.  

“Oh my god,” Iris breathed.  Telastra turned her head slightly so that she could focus one eye on Iris, but didn’t move away from Barry’s side.  “How is this happening?  Telastra,  _ I can see you.”   _

“Not sure yet,” Telastra answered, her brow ridges turning up at the corners in an apologetic expression.  Iris’ eyes widened; Telastra didn’t just look more solid, she sounded better too.  Her voice had a bit of a muffled echo, as if it were coming from inside a distant room with the door shut, but the rasping, croaky quality was almost gone.  Iris could understand her much better now.  

Iris left her spot at the door and slowly moved closer to the dragon.  As she approached, she noticed that Telastra’s sides were rising and falling as she breathed, that she was fidgeting with tiny, restless motions, and that her breath was ruffling the hair on Barry’s head.  “You really are real,” Iris said, standing next to the dragon and looking down at her and Barry.  Telastra’s shoulder came up to Iris’ waist, but her neck was long; Iris suspected that Telastra could make herself tall enough to look Iris directly in the eye, if she stretched out.  

She wanted to run her finger along one of Telastra’s curved gold horns, but it seemed disrespectful somehow, even if the dragon had allowed Iris to touch her in the car earlier.  “It’s not that I didn’t think you were real before, of course.  It’s just different now that I can really see you.”  

“I see,” said Telastra, looking up at Iris with an unmistakeable twitch of her lip.  Iris kept her jaw from dropping with an effort of will, although it was hard to do when a dragon had literally just smirked at her.  Telastra returned her attention to Barry, snuffling at his hair in a proprietary sort of way.  “He will wake.”  

Iris’ jaw did drop that time.  “He’s waking up from his coma?” she said, feeling like she’d had the air knocked out of her lungs.  “When?”  

“Soon,” the dragon said, closing her eyes and settling her head on Barry’s chest.  

Her heart in her throat, Iris stepped back from the hospital bed and slid bonelessly into one of the uncomfortable hard-backed chairs lined up along the wall.  

Her best friend was going to be okay, and there was a visible, tangible dragon standing in a hospital ICU.  

For once, Iris couldn’t decide which piece of news was more unbelievable.  

**Author's Note:**

> If you have time, I would love to get feedback on what you think of this AU so far. And as always, thank you for reading!


End file.
